Flawless
by Ahmiri
Summary: All of his life Yuki's been put on pedestals he never wanted and expected to live out a reputation determined by other people. He's supposed to be perfect and flawless. But he knows it's all a lie, no matter what others say. One-shot.


**Whew! It's 2:33 AM right and I just wrote most of this in the last two hours. Why did I do this on a night I have to get up early the following morning? I don't know. But I've come down with a case of Numb Butt usually inflicted on those who are fool enough to stay up to all hours writing fanfiction. Now, for some background on this story. First of all, I always wanted Tohru to know about Yuki's past. It didn't happen. Second of all, I once read a story where she sees his scars and then the story was discontinued. *sigh* So here's my own rendition although my story is completely different I promise you. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket or its characters. All rights go to Natsuki Takaya.**

People said he was flawless. Yuki Sohma was the perfect person, student, and role model. Tohru had the impression that this was the image people at school had of him, but she'd never realized how right she'd been until she actually heard it herself.

She and Yuki had been walking towards their shoe lockers and then to the front doors to head home when they passed a small group of girls. Their whispers hadn't been as quiet as they'd probably meant and Tohru caught a few words of their conversation.

"So perfect..."

"I wish I could be like that..."

"He's flawless."

Tohru glanced at Yuki, wondering if he'd heard and saw a slightly odd look on his face. He looked hurt, but also as if he knew better. It made Tohru wonder what it would be like to be seen that way. She'd never thought of people as perfect, and certainly never thought of herself that way either. So what did it feel like to have others think that way about you? Once they were out of earshot, she asked, "Does it bother you, Yuki-kun? What they say?"

"No," he answered. "And yes." He turned and left to change out of his school shoes and into outdoor shoes, hiding his face before see could see any emotions that might have been there. Tohru's shoe locker was one row over and she couldn't help but wonder about his cryptic answer while she switched shoes.

She didn't bring it up again, and he avoided the subject as well, instantly asking her if she was looking forward to the upcoming Golden Week. She'd smiled and said that she was but she noticed a faraway look in his eyes and knew he was still thinking about what they'd heard in the halls.

OoOoO

That had been almost two weeks ago, and the event had made itself a place in the back of her mind since then although Yuki seemed to have forgotten it. She was glad since it had seemed to bother him to some degree. The events that transpired that day, however, weren't forgotten by Yuki. It had always bothered him that people seemed to think of him that way. He was tired of being put on some pedestal and having to live up to a reputation he didn't even want. The entire Sohma family had ideas about who he was and what he should be: perfect, superior, respected, and looked up to. Second only to Akito. Growing up during the slight unsheltered time at school with his peers they also seemed to have similar ideas: smart, polite, refined, and the teacher's pet. Those things had left him sitting alone on the playground because no one had seemed to think that they could approach someone as 'refined' as he was. Kyo had his own vision of Yuki: arrogant, selfish, sneaky, and a person who looks down on others. And then there were the people at his high school who insisted on yet another pedestal: beautiful, flawless, a prince, mysterious, and polite.

He hated all of them. All of those pedestals that people shoved him onto and then expectantly watched for him to be exactly what they thought he was. He didn't want to be so 'flawless', 'refined', and 'superior' that he couldn't be a normal person who could interact with others as an everyday human being. If he mutilated his own face, would they accept him as someone on their level? If he was rude to all the girls who professed love to him, would they stop treating him like royalty? If he failed a test, would they stop expecting perfect grades? What would it take to become as accepted as one of them?

He'd grown used to it by now, of course. Accepted the unacceptance of his peers and learned to take their unwavering respect of him as some form of positive reception.

But every time he heard them say it, he became painfully aware of the pedestal they had yet to let him down from.

That was one of the reasons he cared for Tohru so much, seeing as she had yet to put him on a pedestal. She didn't expect anything from him and never assumed anything. She looked at him as a person she had to learn about instead of as the person he should be. She asked questions instead deciding the answer on her own. She realized that he had flaws, or rather, that everyone had flaws. She didn't set him apart as some perfect and untouchable thing.

"Yuki-kun? Are you all right?" Tohru's sweet voice finally reached his ears through his thoughts.

"Eh? I'm sorry, Honda-san, I didn't hear you." They were alone in the house seeing as both Kyo and Shigure were hiding. Shigure was hiding from his editor by taking a sudden 'vacation' to the main house where he would probably be kicked out and end up camping at Ayame's while Kyo had happily disappeared to Kazuma's until Kagura stopped stalking Shigure's house as she had been doing in the last few days.

Tohru held back a smile.

_Don't hold it back. Your smile is always a gift._ Yuki's thought came before he could stop it and he tried to keep it at bay as she said, "I just asked if you had a preference for supper. Since it's just us."

"Oh," Yuki said. "Why don't you pick? Make your favorite meal."

"Ah, but I-" She stopped, blushing. "Okay." As she moved to get up, her feet tangled together and she tripped, falling into him. Smoke rose and with the sound of his transformation, leaving the small rat within now empty clothes. "I'm sorry, Yuki-kun!" Quickly, she folded up his clothes for him and set them on the floor neatly, but as she got up, her hand hit the tea that had been sitting on the table and it fell, spilling it all over his shirt.

"I'm so sorry, Yuki-kun! I ruined your shirt! I'm sorry!"

"It's all right, Honda-san. I have plenty of others and I'm sure that will come out in the laundry." Rat-shaped Yuki scampered over and set two reassuring paws on her knee. "Don't worry yourself over it."

"It'll have to be cleaned quickly or it might stain," she proclaimed, scooping it up and rushing to the laundry room to start up the machine. As it filled with water, she heard the sound of Yuki changing back to human form in the other room and blushed a little, trying not to think of his current lack of clothes. Just then, she glanced at the laundry basket to realize she only had one dirty shirt which was decidedly not enough to make even half a load of laundry. She listened as Yuki was putting his clothes back on and headed upstairs before heading out to fetch the contents of the bedroom hampers.

After collecting Kyo's she knocked twice and entered Yuki's to get his. Her face heated up when she realized he didn't have a shirt on, but he didn't seem to care and she tried not to show the slight discomfort that she felt. After placing his dirty clothes in her basket, she turned to leave but stopped abruptly, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Yuki's back was to her as he rifled through his drawers for a shirt and all across it were small white scars crisscrossing one another. It had to be a trick of the light; where would Yuki get scars like that? She blinked and realized that they weren't illusion. They were real.

She bit her lip, not sure if she should say anything. In the end, she decided he probably would want to be fully dressed if she was going to mention something that had the possibility of making him uncomfortable. With forced happy oblivion, she said, "I'll be putting a load in now. Your shirt should come out clean!"

"Don't worry yourself if it doesn't come out," Yuki said, turning around to look at her, a light blue shirt in hand. "I have others."

With that, she was gone, heading back downstairs with her mind spinning after what she'd seen. Someone had hurt him. Someone had beaten him for some reason. Why? How? Who would hurt another person that way, leaving scars behind as a permanent token to remember it by?

_Laundry_, Tohru reminded herself_. I have to get the tea out of Yuki-kun's shirt._

But all she wanted to do was drop the basket and run back to Yuki to try and understand what had happened to him. He was one of her dearest friends and she wanted to understand and help if she could. Nonetheless, she made herself wait until after the washing machine was running and after she'd made supper unthinkingly making Yuki's favorites instead of hers. Only when the meal was mostly finished did she dare speak of what she'd seen. "Yuki-kun?" she said quietly. "I- I have a question."

"You can ask me."

"Um..." Tohru grasped the edges of her skirt under the table. "I- I don't mean to pry, but... but earlier this evening when I came to get your laundry?"

Yuki nodded. "Yes?"

"I saw the scars... um... on your back." Tohru was still looking down, hoping she wasn't asking too personal of a question. "And I was wondering where they came from." When she looked up, she saw the shocked and regretful expression on his face.

"I never meant for you to see that," he said finally in the barest whisper, after a short silence. "I don't really talk about it with anyone."

"Please don't feel as if you have to! I was only worried and I wanted to help if I could!" Tohru looked back down. "I'm sorry."

Yuki reached across the table and took her hand. "You don't need to apologize. This wasn't your fault."

Tohru didn't look up, ashamed that she had asked such a personal question without thinking and missing the small sad smile and faraway look in his eyes. "I won't ask again, I promise. Here. I'll start washing the dishes." She got up, letting his hand slip away as she set to work. She wouldn't so much as mention his scars for the remainder of the evening.

OoOoO

Now what? That question had been forefront in Yuki's mind during the previous night after supper and now all morning too. Tohru acted as normal, but he knew she didn't let things she knew were painful to others slip away that easily. She cared too much for that. _If I tell her about it - even just the minimum of information - what will her reaction be?_ He didn't want pity or a constant cloud of depression to follow her because of him but if he didn't tell her she might assume he didn't trust her when he did.

That fact drove him to head straight to her room. He took a breath outside the closed door. He'd never told anyone before; he'd never had to. Closing his eyes, he let out a breath and opened her door. "Akito," he said. "They're from Akito."

Tohru looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

Yuki firmed his resolve, willing himself to force the words out. He trusted her. He could always trust her. The option to tell or not to tell her had tormented him all night long, and now he just wanted get it out and be done with it, no matter how painful it was. "I'm not perfect," he said. "I'm not flawless. Akito locked me away for a time and... he beat me sometimes. That's where they're from." It was an incomplete story, leaving her with the only detail she'd asked for. But that was all he had the courage to speak out about.

Tohru's heart broke for him as she realized what he was talking about. Her feet took her to stand next to him and she took his hand in hers, looking into his fear-filled eyes. What was he scared of? "I'm so sorry, Yuki-kun. He... he shouldn't have done that to you." Tears began gathering at the corners of her eyes and she wiped them away. Then she remembered his words before he's told her. "Yuki-kun, perfection isn't flawlessness. It's the flaws in every human being that make them perfect in their own way." The last few words came out garbled through the tears that refused remain unshed.

_She's crying_, Yuki thought. _She's crying when she only knows a small part of what happened. If she knew all of it, what would she do?_

Not knowing what else to do, he gently took her arms and led her into a sitting position where he let her rest her forehead against his shoulder to cry, trying not to shed any tears himself and just running his fingers through her hair in comfort. There. He'd shared more of himself with her. She was the one who didn't have a pedestal for him. The one who only saw him through what he himself told her.

He wanted her to know the true him that no one else could see, so at least one person would see him as who he was instead of what they chose to make him. He wasn't flawless to her, and that was something he would always treasure.

**The ending is sort of bleh for me, but maybe you didn't think so. This is a one-shot as I decided against having Yuki dump his angst-load on Tohru. A character telling a story the reader already knows isn't very exciting, see. Anyway, review! What did you think? I tried to cover my bases and I hope you enjoyed it!**


End file.
